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BREEDING TECHNIQUES AND SELECTION FOR BREEDING OF THE HONEYBEE FRIEDRICH RUTTNER Breeding Techniques and Selection for Breeding of the Honeybee An Introduction to the Rearing of Queens, the Conduct of Selection Procedures and the Operation of Mating Stations Translated by Ashleigh and Eric Milner Published by The British Isles Bee Breeders Association by arrangement with Ehrenwirth Verlag, Munich British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Ruttner, Friedrich Breeding techniques and selection for breeding of the honeybee. 1. Western Europe. Livestock: Honey bees. Breeding I. Title II. British Isles Bee Breeders' Association III. Zuchttechnik und Zuchtauslese bei der Beine. English 638'. 1 ISBN 0-905369-07-6 © 1988 This edition Published by The British Isles Bee Breeders Association by arrangement with Ehrenwirth Verlag, Munich Translated by Ashleigh and Eric Milner Printed in England by G Beard & Son Ltd, Brighton Contents Translators' Foreword 4 Preface to the 6th Edition 7 Introduction 8 I Rearing of Queens and Drones 11 1. Rearing of Queens 12 2. Rearing of Drones 41 3. Co-ordination of Drone and Queen-rearing 44 II Selection for performance 45 1. What is Breeding? 45 2. The Breeding of Honeybees 46 3. Results of Selective Breeding 48 4. The Evaluation of Performance 53 5. The Honeybee Family 59 6. Breeding Programmes 63 III Control of Mating 79 1. The Mating Apiary 79 2. The Pure-Breeding Area 80 3. The Mating Station 81 IV The Races and Strains of Honeybees of Central Europe 96 1. Distribution 96 2. Comparison of Carnica and Mellifera 98 3 The Incompatibility of the Honeybee Races 100 4. Cross Breeding 100 5. How do Carnica and Mellifera differ from each other? 103 6. Breeding Strains 104 7. Other Races of Significance for Breeding 108 V The Assessment of the Physical Characters 111 1. Sampling 111 2. Instruments 112 3. The Racial Characters 112 4. Interpretation of the Character-data 137 5. The Physical Characters of the Races of the Honeybee 138 6. Measurement of the Proboscis 141 Notes 146 INDEX 149 Translators' Foreword Good wine needs no bush, and a book by Dr. Ruttner needs no commenda- tion. His name is known and respected among scientific beekeepers in five continents. He has supplied us with the following information and advice: "From the time when Europe's beekeepers detected the existence of various races of honeybees, importation of foreign stock and the inevitable hybridisation of different geographic races began, with all the well known consequences for the behaviour of the colonies. Early attempts were made to re-establish a more manageable bee, but selection programmes and planned matings have produced substantial results only since the characteristics of races, and mating biology were better known and simple biometrical methods, applicable by beekeepers were also available. Since 1948 the author has devoted his efforts towards this goal, concen- trating mainly on the discrimination of the two dark European races: the Black Bee of Central and Western Europe, and Carniolans. The frequent hybrids between these races can be recognised only by special methods, which are now adopted by beekeepers all over Germany and Austria, and also in other countries. They help to keep the two races accurately separat- ed, even within the same country, e.g. in Norway. Hundreds of week-end classes were - and are - held to make the beekeepers familiar with these methods. The procedures described in this booklet were first introduced while the author was at the Breeding Station, Lunz am See, Austria, and were completed later at the Apicultural Institute, Oberursel, West Germany. An elaborate selection and testing programme, effective queen rearing and mating control, with a check up of the result, obtained by morphomet- ries, constitute a unit. Forty years after the start, clear progress obtained with this breeding programme using Carniolan strains, is clearly demon- strated. At the same time the almost vanished native Black Bee of the Tyrolean Alps was preserved and improved with the same methods". We hope that this book will encourage the breeding and improvement of our native Dark Bee in these islands. Although in these pages it is compared unfavourably with the Carniolan, we must remember that the Carniolan has had the benefit of selection and improvement for nearly a century, further advanced by more than forty years of scientific work while the Dark Bee has been largely neglected. We hope that, profiting by the skill and knowledge conveyed in these pages, our readers will remedy this defect. We are further encouraged by Dr. Ruttner's statement that while the Carniolan Bee is the bee for the continental climate, the Dark Bee is the bee for the Atlantic seaboard with its uncertain weather and in particular its erratic springs. But how can we improve or breed from an extinct race? Since the 1920s it has been constantly asserted that the British Bee was exterminated by the Isle of Wight Disease. Is this a fact? Is it even probable? Recently, an attempt was made to rid the country of rabbits by the introduction of Myxomatosis. Great numbers died, but some were resistant, even when 4 new strains of the disease were introduced, and as is well known they have multiplied again. It seems highly probable that something similar may have happened to our native bees. The bees of today are descendants of the immune or resistant survivors. For whatever reason, many have certainly survived. We have received samples from Scotland, Wales and different parts of the north and west of England which conform closely to the morphometric standards of Apis mellifera mellifera, and are reported to show the traditional characters of the British bee: compact brood nest, always with reserves of honey and pollen; early breeding and robust wintering. This has been gratifying but not surprising. The native bee has become aclimatised since the last Ice Age. It winters well (A Scottish beekeeper said in 1986 : Bad winter? those who keep these bees don't know there's been a bad winter. Those who import bees daren't face the bank manager). Native bees rear drones and queens earlier in the year than imported bees do, and they can fly at a lower temperature than the foreign bees can tolerate. So with early mating they enjoy ecological isolation and can maintain racial purity. Anxiety is sometimes expressed that the native bee will not develop in Spring in time for the early nectar flow. From our experience (in Notts, and Yorks) we can state that if our colonies have been well prepared for winter, with adequate stores, they will usually build up to great strength in time to bring in a good harvest from the Rape in April and be ready for swarming or queen rearing early in May. As with all bees, there is varia- tion, and a programme of selection can improve performance in this respect. We have also observed that some queens do not develop their full potential till the second year. The need for improvement is urgent. In our thickly populated country it is of prime importance that our bees should be quiet and gentle. Experience confirms Dr. Ruttner's teaching that only bees of pure race can be relied on to transmit desirable qualities to their offspring. To achieve this for the country as a whole breeders will need the conditions described in this book; isolated mating stations, pure race areas or instrumental insemination. Till these conditions are attained we shall have to rely on the qualities which have enabled our bees to survive in a pure condition, good wintering, early queen rearing and low temperature flight. The techniques for the biometrical identification of bees and for selec- tive breeding, lucidly set out by Dr. Ruttner have been successfully carried out by groups of workers in this country during the last six years and have been found to be within the competence of many beekeepers. Dr. Ruttner authorised us to make, in the translation, such adaptations as we thought necessary to the conditions of British Apiculture, but we thought it wiser and fairer to the reader to adhere as closely as we could to Dr. Ruttner's own words and to confine our remarks to the notes. Our heartiest thanks are offered to Dr. Ruttner for encouraging the publi- cation of our translation, and for supplying the new material to bring it into line with his new edition. 5 We also wish to thank: Bernard Mobus, N.D.B., till recently C.B.I, for N.E. Scotland; Dr. J. van Praagh, of the Institute for Bee Research, Celle; Dr. V. Maul, of the Bee Breeding Institute, Kirchhain; Dr. F. Schaper, of the Institute for Bee Breeding, Erlangen; and Frau Kuhnert, of the Institute for Bee Research, Oberursel. The readers' thanks are due to John Dews, who asked for the translation of two pages, then for more and more till the whole was done and then urged us on to publication, also to Eric Foster for great care with proof reading, and to Albert Knight, Secretary of BIBBA, for painstaking attention to the diagrams and special thanks to Mrs. Susan Grice, without whose unfailing patience and skill with a word processor this work would never have come to fruition. Lastly we mention the debt of British Beekeeping to the late Beowulf Cooper, without whose work, and his part in the foundation of BIBBA we should never have become acquainted with German Beekeeping, or had the privilege of meeting Dr. Ruttner. 6 Preface to the Sixth Edition These instructions for the rearing of queens, for selection procedures, and for the management of Mating Stations, give a concise summary of the experience which my brother, Dipl.

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